Womanliness

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

Womanliness. —Christianity is distinguished for the honour it assigns, the liberty it allows to woman. ‘Christianity raises woman from the slavish position which she held, both in Judaism and in heathendom, to her true moral dignity and importance, makes her an heir of the same salvation with man, and opens to her a field for the noblest and loveliest virtue’ (Schaff’s Apostolic Christianity , p. 441 f.). The duties of husbands are, according to St. Peter ( 1 Peter 3:7), to be regulated by a recognition of the principle that their wives are ‘also joint heirs of the grace of life.’ In the Christian society ‘the conventional distinctions of religious caste or of social rank, even the natural distinction of sex, are banished,’ for ‘there can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus’ ( Galatians 3:28). Lightfoot in loco quotes a saying of Jesus from the Apocryphal Gospel of the Egyptians, which may be founded on this verse—‘Being asked by Salome when His kingdom should come, He is reported to have answered, “When the two shall be one, and the male with the female, neither male nor female.” ’ This mystical saying has its fulfilment in the character of Jesus. For the characteristic of Jesus Christ, and so the regulative principle of Christian morality, is completeness, symmetry, harmony, balance. Other men are known and loved for this or that excellence; but of Jesus Christ, with respect to His personal perfection, we can say what was said of Shakspeare with regard to his artistic pre-eminence, ‘His speciality is everything.’ Manhood in its wholeness and fulness is found in Him, alike wide in its range and lofty in its reach. Hence Jesus Christ is not a pattern merely for one sex, or one age, or one time, or one temperament, or one class. In this sense, too, there is in Him neither male nor female, bond nor free, Jew nor Greek, learned nor unlearned.

The sphere of woman is the home, not the world. Man lives in effort and conflict. ‘But woman is at home in the region of feeling and affection, and she finds her highest vocation in the cultivation of those loves and sympathies that make home the dearest spot on earth.’ Man, being thus active and even combative, develops ‘pertinacity and self-assertion; whereas the receptive nature of woman manifests itself rather in patient endurance and tender devotion to the service of loved ones. Her emotions dominate her intellect; her judgment to a certain extent is biassed by her feelings. On the other hand, where moral as well as intellectual considerations come into view, woman’s judgment is likely to be as just as that of man, whose decisions are frequently based on grounds of reason alone’ (Bruce, The Formation of Christian Character , p. 57 f.). May we find any such signs of womanliness in the character or teaching of Jesus?

Jesus assigned great importance to marriage and family, the sanctity and unity of the home. Although His vocation required His abandonment of home ( John 2:4,  Mark 3:33-34), and He required of His disciples also the same renunciation ( Luke 14:26), yet He missed the shelter and peace of home ( Matthew 8:20), and recognized the greatness of the sacrifice involved ( Matthew 19:29). His denunciation of the lax traditions of the elders regarding divorce ( Matthew 19:3-9) and the duty of children to their parents ( Mark 7:9-13 was in defence of the home. It is supremely significant that love, the grace of the home, and not justice, the virtue of the State, is made the first and greatest commandment ( Mark 12:29-31). The child is nearer, means more, to the mother than to the father; and Jesus understood and cared for children ( Matthew 11:16;  Matthew 18:2-3;  Matthew 19:13-15). Does not the modesty of the woman appear in His reference to the lustful glance ( Matthew 5:28), and His stooping to write upon the ground when the woman taken in her sin stood before Him ( John 8:6)? Jesus understood the heart of a, woman in penitence ( Luke 7:47) and in gratitude ( John 12:7-8). His defence of the offering of love shows not only His active but also His receptive affectionateness, His yearning for, as well as bestowal of, the generosities of the heart. He was not only intensely emotional, but quick in expressing His emotions ( John 11:33;  John 11:38,  Mark 7:34;  Mark 8:12,  John 11:35,  Luke 13:34;  Luke 19:41,  Matthew 23:37). His tenderness, gentleness, patience, and forbearance are more distinctively feminine than masculine graces. In His resignation and obedience to His Father’s will ( Matthew 11:26;  Matthew 11:29) is there not a womanly rather than a manly submissiveness? The prominence He gives in the Beatitudes to the passive graces of endurance rather than the active virtues of endeavour ( Matthew 5:3-10) vindicates the distinctive excellence of womanhood. His teaching about non-resistance ( Matthew 5:38-42), so much misunderstood and neglected, can be better appreciated by women than by men, for such patience under wrong has entered into their life more than into that of men. The mind of Jesus was intuitive rather than ratiocinative; His moral judgment was swift and sure; His spiritual discernment direct; and these are characteristic of women rather than of men.

Doubtless it was this womanliness in Jesus that attracted and attached so many women to Him during His earthly ministry: and they received from Him a loving welcome such as they did not find in any other religious teacher of the age. His disciples were astonished that He was speaking to the woman of Samaria ( John 4:27), and doubtless the prejudices of many were offended by His action regarding women. His defence of the sinful woman and of Mary has been already noted. ‘We have a lovely group of female disciples and friends around the Lord: Mary, the wife of Clopas; Salome, the mother of James and John; Mary of Bethany, who sat at Jesus’ feet; her busy and hospitable sister Martha; Mary of Magdala, whom the Lord healed of a demoniacal possession; the sinner, who washed His feet with her tears of penitence and wiped them with her hair; and all the noble women who ministered to the Son of Man in His earthly poverty with the gifts of their love ( Luke 8:3,  Matthew 27:55,  Mark 15:41), lingered last around His Cross ( John 19:25), and were first at His open sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection ( Matthew 28:1,  John 20:1)’ [Schaff, op. cit. p. 442]). The reverence that the mother of Jesus has properly inspired has given to womanhood a glory, and to woman a position and influence in the Christian Church, never before and nowhere else recognized. To the instances given above of the relation of Jesus to women we may add His compassion for the widow of Nain ( Luke 7:13), and His commendation of the widow’s mites ( Mark 12:43-44). His treatment of a woman on three occasions appears harsh, but a consideration of the circumstances in each case removes this impression. His rebuke to His mother at Cana ( John 2:4) expresses His dread of any human interference with His fulfilment of His Divine vocation (cf. the rebuke of Peter,  Matthew 16:23); His repulse of the Syrophœnician mother ( Mark 7:27) was His own indignant protest against Jewish exclusiveness; His requirement that the woman healed by touching His garment should confess her deed was no violence done to her sense of modesty, but was intended to replace the uncertainty of a cure snatched unawares by the assurance of healing willingly bestowed ( Mark 5:34). What Christ has been to and done for women throughout the history of Christendom, and what women have suffered and accomplished for His Church and Kingdom on earth, afford abundant and conclusive evidence of the womanliness of Jesus in presenting in His character all womanly grace as well as manly virtue, and offering in His salvation what meets the deepest needs, and fulfils the loftiest hopes of womanhood in all lands and ages. See also Woman.

Alfred E. Garvie.

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) The quality or state of being womanly.